Welcome to our 59th Episode of WDEK Podcast. Justin the intern starts the live show on a Tuesday night at the Red Room in NYC! Christian just returned from father's retirement party in Chicago. Shonali just returned from Nashville where she kept up with the news about a racist crazy tv star and her tweets. What's it like to have your creative work rejected in person to your face over and over?

We ask our first guest that question. She is cartoonist, illustrator, writer and performer Emily Flake. She has "cobbled" together a living as a cartoonist for a long time now. She's come a long way from being an ad sales person for alt weekly New York Blade to becoming a successful cartoonist who has had hundreds of her works featured in the New Yorker. She's written a book about parenting called Mama Tried. She's a parent who refreshingly doesn't think being a parent is the MOST awesome thing in the world. How cool is that? Look out for her upcoming YA (Young Adult) book she's working on now, a fictional fanzine from 1992.

WDEK 080 23 Christian Felix Shonali Bhowmik H Jon Benjamin.jpg

Our second guest is H. Jon Benjamin, a comedian, actor and writer probably most famous for his work as the voice of Bob in Bob's Burgers and the voice of Archer in Archer. Benjamin as Shonali calls him (they are old friends) used to host a comedy show in the East Village called Midnight Pajama Jam. It was the best. JB's written a book that just came out called Failure is An Option: An Attempted Memoir. Shonali's been listening to the audiobook and loves it. She is intrigued by Jon Benjamin's love for disco, roller skating and disco balls. Jon explains what the main take away from his book is in two words.

We Get It Off Our Chest with illustrator musician Marcellus Hall who refuses to rap with us.

Our final guest is musician, singer, songwriter Rob Townsend. Rob is originally from Spartanburg, SC. He's also a part time sailing instructor and may be the only gay sailing captain on the Hudson. We like the idea of a gay sailboat. We discuss the difficulty of selling music during an era where everyone gets their music free. Rob moved to NYC from Austin, TX where he was in a folk band. His music has changed drastically. He is humble and self deprecating but we think he's awesome. He sings an original song called Clatskanie and a Randy Newman tune called Short People! Welcome to our new sound engineer Ezana Million! ENJOY!!! Photo by Daria Huxley.

Direct download: WDEK_Chapters_Ep._59.mp3
Category:general, comedy, good+times -- posted at: 12:14pm EDT

Episode 56 is a momentous occasion, with the news that HiFi will close at the end of October 2017, this is the last time we will tape our show in our beloved home space. Currently we are looking for another home and expect to return to a new space live in front of an audience in January of 2018. Christian & Shonali open the show with quality conversation about bunions, butts and adult day care. Our first guest is lawyer, environmental activist and national carryout bag expert Jennie Reilly Romer. After helping San Francisco and Los Angeles enact laws on plastic bag policy, Jennie moved to New York with the mission of doing the same thing here. She came really close! Jennie explains why these thin plastic bags are so problematic, what we can do to help (plasticbaglaws.org); who is lobbying against the policy and how Christian did the wrong thing by putting the plastic bags in the recycling bin. We salute Jennie on her work and look forward to her to running for New York City Council! Go Jennie. With the news that HiFi will close at the end of October, we are excited celebrate the man who created this safe haven for indie rock n roll bands in the mid 90's, East Village neighbors in the 2000's and podcasters and comedians in the late 2010's. Here is a special interview with the owner of HiFi (formerly the legendary East Village rock club Brownies) Mike Stuto. Find out about Mike's time as a club owner who had do idea what he was doing. There were good times (David Bowie, Debbie Harry, Mel Brooks) and bad (Sugar Ray, Milemarker) but Mike has always managed to this day to bring together a community that is heavily indebted to him for giving them a space to create, learn, unite, celebrate and collaborate. After listening quiz: What band made Mike want to work in rock n' roll? Our final guest is Grammy nominated singer and storyteller Chaney Sims. Like Mike, Chaney is a native New Yorker and the East Village was her playground. She is the daughter of a great blues musician, Bill Sims Jr. with whom she performs with in the Grammy Nominated Heritage Blues Orchestra. Her recent solo performance of songs written from her Haiku 365 project at Joe's Pub was with a string orchestral accompaniment by Root Stock Republic. The performance will be released as a live album recording soon. Listen to Chaney blow you away with her performances of Leadbelly's Go Down, Old Hannah and Nina Simone's C-Line Woman. Have a great rest of the year and until our next show, do yourself a favor and binge on the many earlier episodes of We Don't Even Know.